Within the next decade or two, labyrinths will become standard and valued
features of healing environments. Indeed, the process is well under way,
with labyrinths at more than 60 healthcare facilities across the country,
led in 1997 by California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco (photo).

The day will be soon be upon us in which no progressive architect will
design a healthcare facility without including a meditation labyrinth.
The day is not far off when patients, staff members, and doctors will
insist that their existing facility install a labyrinth.

Unicursal Design

"Labyrinth" and "maze" are often used interchangeably,
referring to everything from tall hedges to video games, from designs
in corn fields to a popular David Bowie movie. Meditation labyrinths are
a different genre, however, in that they have a single path (hence, "unicursal")
which leads unerringly, though circuitously, to the center, with no intersections
or dead ends.

In this monograph, "labyrinth" exclusively pertains to unicursal
meditation
labyrinths. The diagram to the right illustrates the unicursal Chartres
Cathedral labyrinth design.

Experientially, there is a vast difference between a maze and a labyrinth.
A maze confuses, distresses, excites, and terrifies, whereas a labyrinth
calms, heals, comforts, and balances.

Inner Healing

Since science deals exclusively with the visible, observable, and quantifiable,
scientific medicine, in turn, takes a reductionist approach, seeking to
alleviate symptoms by prescribing drugs or surgery.

Labyrinths effectively address that area ignored by the scientific paradigm,
namely, inner healing. Only in recent years has the medical community
turned its attention to health design, environment, and patient-centered
care, recognizing that the subjective and amorphous qualities of inner
healing, such as attitude, state of mind, and beliefs, have an enormous
effect on the effectiveness of a patient's treatment and recovery. More
and more, patients themselves are demanding that inner healing be given
equal emphasis to outer healing.

The new more holistic direction of healthcare has been largely passive,
dealing with the color of walls, the view from the windows, and the design
of home-like architecture. All are meant to calm and to comfort. Labyrinths,
too, calm and comfort. Labyrinths represent the next step forward, in
that they are active, not passive. They offer something the patient can
do. In fact, labyrinths are pro-active, promoting well-being not just
for patients, but for staff, health providers, doctors, visitors, and
even the local community.

Use in Hospitals

A recent article about the labyrinth at Mid-Columbia Medical Center in
Oregon quotes CEO Mark Scott as stating that the labyrinth complements
the use of chemotherapy and radiation in cancer treatment. In verification,
a cancer patient agreed that walking the labyrinth gave her a sense of
confidence and control over her treatment. Attitude towards one's treatment
process (inner healing) has been shown to be a significant factor in the
efficacy of that treatment (outer healing).

Three Rivers Community Hospital, also in Oregon, invites the local community
to use their labyrinth. Programs have included a women's cancer support
group, hospice butterfly release,
survivors' labyrinth walk, holistic nurses retreat, candlelit memorial
service, Spears Cancer Center walk, Day of Renewal walk, domestic violence
awareness walk, Rotary Club walk, volunteer chaplaincy program, and more.

The labyrinth at California Pacific Medical Center is just outside the
waiting room. Inside, there is a sign and brochures describing how to
walk the labyrinth. Surgeons sometimes walk the labyrinth before performing
an operation, to calm themselves. Nurses send anxious patients and family
members to walk the labyrinth, reporting that they return more relaxed
and focused.

Labyrinths can be used by both individuals and groups, either without
guidance or as part of a specific program, such as dealing with AIDS,
supporting the cancer journey, relieving grief or loss, or examining one's
priorities.

Photo, right: Portable canvas labyrinth in use at St. Luke's Hospital,
St. Louis, MO.

Metaphor for Life

Metaphorically, labyrinths reflect the path of illness and recovery.
Despite the many uncertainties and changes of directions, if we are diligent
and stay the course, we will arrive at our goal. This is one of the most
common insights reported by labyrinth walkers.

There are numerous books which use a literary metaphor to compare the
healthcare system to a maze, in which the patient gets lost and becomes
fearful and isolated. In a maze we do indeed lose ourselves, but in a
labyrinth, we find ourselves. Walking a labyrinth is a type of pilgrimage,
which takes us within, not just to the center of the design, but to our
own center. That's where inner healing takes place. The labyrinth leads
where science cannot enter.

Self-Care

Inner healing has many levels and aspects. It differs from person to
person. With inner healing, there can be no standard dose, no specific
regimen. Inner healing defies and baffles scientific method, but it is
effectively embraced by the labyrinth. For this reason, labyrinths meet
people wherever they are emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, leading
them gently forward to the next step, and then the following step, and
then the step beyond that.

Historically, healthcare settings and treatment modalities have been
designed and controlled by men. As a result, they were largely impersonal,
left-brained, and masculine, reflecting social, economic, and scientific
influences. The movement toward more personal, patient-centered care has
been directed mostly by women. Labyrinth walking fits into this softer
paradigm. Being intensely personal, right-brained, feminine, and spiritual,
labyrinths make a unique contribution to holistic healthcare, broadening
its reach.

One group in need of self care are the employees and staff at health
clinics and hospitals, who are frequently under a lot of stress. Staff
retention is a major emphasis, as good people are hard to replace in today's
marketplace. Labyrinths can offer a tool to help staff members cope with
their important responsibilities.

Scientific Verification

For 30 years, Herbert Benson at Harvard University has championed the
physiological benefits of meditation, which he calls the "relaxation
response." He clearly shows that meditation slows breathing, heart,
and metabolic rates, and lowers elevated blood pressure more effectively
than drugs. As a form of walking meditation, the labyrinth produces the
same verifiable results.

Ultimately, however, one cannot use the measurements of outer healing
to adequately measure or verify inner healing. I am certain that careful,
double blind experiments will show that labyrinth walking results in shorter
recovery times, better attitude, compliance to treatment requirements,
and fewer complications. Nevertheless, the use of labyrinths should not
(and cannot) depend on scientific verification.

The fact that science and labyrinths speak different languages is a great
benefit, not a detriment. Working together they address the complete person,
physically and spiritually. Labyrinths offer an accessible, cost-effective,
pro-active spiritual technology that does what science cannot do. They
overcome the inadequacies of the reductionist paradigm. Even in cases
where outer healing fails, inner healing can still take place. Hence,
hospices are beginning to discover the benefits of using labyrinths. Working
in concert, medicine, design, environment, and labyrinths offer a whole
that greatly exceeds the sum of its parts.

Photo, right: A labyrinth we installed for West Clinic, Memphis, TN.

One View of Healing

In physical healing, we can see the bone mend, or the drugs interact
with the body, but observation is not explanation. Often we give our observed
phenomenon a name. When we see cells reproducing out of proportion, we
label that behavior "cancer." To then say that the phenomenon
happens because the patient has cancer, is to give cause to what is really
an observation of the effect. The cause is metaphysical, beyond the physical,
beyond explanation and understanding. The best that medicine, science,
and even design and environment can do is to organize the external elements
that have shown to be effective and then hope that healing follows. Statistics
demonstrate that often healing does result, but sometimes, in identical
situations, it doesn't.

Healing is not mechanical, it is spiritual. Just as scientific medicine
organizes the physical elements, so does the labyrinth organize the experiential
and spiritual elements that facilitate inner healing. From walking the
labyrinth can come joy, hope, calm, balance. To the extent that the external
malady reflects an internal, spiritual malaise, the labyrinth also offers
outer healing. Labyrinths represent a methodology available to healthcare
facilities to address critical non-physical circumstances. How? Being
ancient and archetypal, labyrinths touch us at a very deep level. They
take us far beyond the rational mind and the intellect, which are so highly
valued by science, to our inner essence. Ultimately, all healing is spiritual,
and the labyrinth is a spiritual technology.

Cost

Labyrinth Enterprises, LLC,
is the world's leading full-service labyrinth resource. Services range
from lectures, training, consulting and design to on-site labyrinth installation.
Having made more than 1,000 labyrinths, our prices range from a few thousand
dollars to well into six figures. For institutions such as churches, schools,
and hospitals, we have developed proprietary methods resulting in a concrete labyrinth
that is extremely durable and low-maintenance.

Our mission is to get labyrinths into the world. We support our mission
through the services described above. The subject of labyrinths in healthcare
settings is far broader than I have been able to cover in this brief monograph.
It will be the subject of my next book on labyrinths. Meanwhile, my hope
is that you, the reader, will get a glimpse of the potential value of
labyrinths and inform yourself further about this fascinating and important
spiritual technology. The future has arrived.